The Vineyard: More adventures on the rosé roundabout

The Eye of the Partridge

Story and photo by Alistair Highet/Life@Home

September is the best month of the summer — at least it always has been for me. June is abrupt, and damp, and I can’t decide what to wear. In July, nothing gets done. August is OK, I guess. But by September I’m getting the hang of things. The air is clear. The harvest is beginning to come in. The trees are at their most lush, and the sunsets are gorgeous.

I have been a proponent — OK, a groupie — of rosé wines for years now, and while I see more and more of them in the wine stores (meaning someone else is drinking them) I’m still surprised that they so rarely show at parties or Sunday lunches.

When they’re at their best, they are the most charming of wines. The colors range from the vibrancy of cranberry, to the almost graying hue of a pink rose in the elegant early stages of its failing bloom. Do not think about White Zinfandel! In the right light, wearing the right clothes, with the right fish on the grill, a glass of rosé is the taste of heaven.

I tried several from around the world and in varying styles and price ranges in recent weeks, and I give you my detailed thoughts below, but I wanted to share with you some history, inspired by the names of one of the wines I tried — the Brugioni Vineyards, Oeil de Perdrix, Belle Glos Pinot Noir Blanc (Sonoma County, 2012, $21.26). This is from the Wagner Family vineyards, and a portion of the sale of the wine goes to breast cancer research. I am reading between the lines here, but Joseph Wagner’s grandmother was named Lorna Belle Glos Wagner, and perhaps there is a story there.

But the one I want to tell is the “Oeil de Perdrix.” This is literally translated as “eye of the partridge” and it comes to us from the Champagne region in the Middle Ages. Evidently, at one time white grapes and red grapes were grown together and thrown into the mix together, making the wine’s color up for grabs — sometimes white, sometimes red, but then a gray with a pinkish hue. Presumably the original rosés. Anyway, wines with this pinkish color — whether made deliberately or by accident — were called “eye of the partridge” because they resembled the color of a partridge eye, particularly right after they had been, um, dispatched to the other side. The expression fell out of favor in France, but the phrase migrated to Switzerland, where it is still in use.

The Wagner family borrowed it for this wine, made from pinot noir crushed in their skins allowing some of the color to seep in. This was a very elegant, feminine wine, with an orangey, cranberry color and flavors of strawberry and raspberry muted with creaminess, but with good acidity.

See below for some others. I recommend them all.

Gerard Bertrand Gris Blanc 2012 ($12)

Gerard Bertrand is a huge producer of unusual wines in the Languedoc. The wine is made with a grayish-pinkish variation of the Grenache grape, is very pale in color but vibrant, juicy, with grapefruit and lemon, hints of white pepper. A perfect wine for the porch.

Vitiano Rosato Umbria, 2012 ($12)

Vitiano is also a big producer, and this rosato is a blend of Sangiovese, Merlot, Cabernet Sauvignon and Aleatico. A very rich and dense cranberry color, it had a lot of character. A masculine rosé with sour cherries, vibrant acidity, notes of stone, dried herbs and some strangely enchanting woody flavors, and very tart. I liked it.

I’m about as likely to buy a wine called “Whispering Angel” as I am to read a book with that title, but this is a very good wine, very refined in the Provençal style, pale peach in color, rose hip bitterness, arugula, lemon, grapefruit, minerality, all of it ethereal like a choir in heaven.

Ca dei Frati, Rosa dei Frati, Riviera del Garda Bresciano, 2012 ($18)

OK, a mouthful, but what fun! A blend of Gropello, Marzemino, Sangiovese and Barbera, made on an estate near lake Garda in Lombardy that dates back to 1782. A tea color, it had tongue scraping tartness, acrid almost, crabapples, and a lingering finish. Great.

Alistair Highet is a former editor, restaurant manager, and vinedresser, and has written
about wine for over 20 years.